More than 200 angry Graniteville and Vaucluse residents turned out for a community meeting Thursday night to express their outrage over new water and sewer rates that have since been temporarily suspended.

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Jackie Ricciardi/Staff

State Rep. Roland Smith and other community members listen as Graniteville resident Patricia Baker voices her frustrations. Ms. Baker held up soil to show others the amount of chlorine in the soil and water since a 2004 chlorine spill.

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Jackie Ricciardi/Staff

Graniteville and Vaucluse residents talk about their frustrations concerning the water and sewer rate increases at Langley Church of God. More than 200 people showed up to share their plights and to find out what might happen.

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One after another, people stood up, voicing their concerns.

"Avondale is getting away with everything," said Wayne Johnson, of Graniteville, referring to the company that oversees the Graniteville water system and recently requested the rate increase. "What we're saying and what we're doing doesn't make a difference."

State Rep. Roland Smith, R-Warrenville, attended the meeting at Langley Church of God in Graniteville, listening to people's concerns and telling them they could hold off on paying their water bills at least until the South Carolina Public Service Commission again takes up the issue Wednesday. He said he planned to take Thursday night's comments to the PSC at that meeting.

Mr. Smith said his main focus right now is finding somebody to take over the current system. Lately, the Valley Public Service Authority has been in negotiations with Avondale, but no agreement has been reached.

Mr. Smith also said he would be surprised if the PSC reinstitutes the new rates, but he added there's no way to know how the commission will vote. He said he would have liked for residents to have at least been given a 30-day notice before the new rates went into effect.

At issue are new water and sewer rates requested by Avondale Mills and approved by the PSC in June. The system's 460 customers received their first bills with the increase July 31, some having bills that were hundreds of dollars higher. As a result, many residents called area legislators, demanding that something be done.

Legislators sent a letter to the PSC requesting they readdress the rates, prompting the PSC on Wednesday to suspend the rates until further notice pending another meeting on the subject on Wednesday.

Avondale officials have said the rate increase was necessary because the company, which had subsidized consumer water use, was absorbing large losses since it shut down area mill operations. They also have said the company gave adequate warning to customers, with a notice sent out six months before the increase took effect and two public meetings.

The rates increased from a subsidized 51 cents per 1,000 gallons to $4.50 for water and from 89 cents per 1,000 gallons to $6.50 for sewer treatment.

After the meeting was over, Mr. Smith said he thought it had gone well, providing upset residents a platform to voice their disgust.

"Ninety-nine percent of those folks, they know there's a problem, and we want to solve it," he said.

But Pearlious Bledsoe, of Graniteville, said some residents still seemed unhappy with what they heard at the meeting.

"I think that we had a lot of opinions expressed that they were not satisfied with the answers they got," she said. "There are no answers at this point."

Reach Jonathan Overstreet at (706) 823-3708 or jonathan.overstreet@augustachronicle.com.